Oh, boy, that's not good. Due to a critical error with the last Open Beta that ended up soft-bricking some 5 and 5T devices, OnePlus is completely pulling the new build for those phones and for the 6/6T. Oops.

Normally the very end of the year brings us a lull in smartphone news — holiday shopping's over and the deals are drying up, but we've still got another week or so before CES really starts making waves. But leave it to OnePlus to sneak in some Christmas Day excitement, as the company starts distribution of OxygenOS 9.0.0 OTA updates for the OnePlus 5 and 5T.

OnePlus is trucking along with Open Beta releases for the 5 and 5T. Unlike the last version, which was fairly minor, this one has a lot going on. Now, most of it is background/under the hood stuff, like optimizations and improvements. As usual, the changelog is below — let's take a look.

Plenty of OEMs are happy to let older hardware languish when it comes to updates, but OnePlus has become one of the more prolific manufacturers with keeping its older handsets up to date—barring a few specificmissteps. On that note, an OTA for the OnePlus 5 and 5T is currently in an incremental rollout. Oxygen OS v5.1.4 delivers improved photo clarity, a new sleep standby optimization setting, and group messaging in the stock messaging app. Let's take a look and see for ourselves.

Just over a week later, OnePlus is pushing out another Open Beta for the 5 and 5T. This one is not nearly as major as the last, instead focusing on camera improvements. Of course, the highlight here is the inclusion of Google Lens, which should excite some people.

OnePlus' OxygenOS Open Betas give us an illuminating glimpse into the company's future software plans. Although it's possible that not every feature that makes it into the Open Betas will be deemed fit for stable release, they give us an advance look at the company's intentions, if nothing else. Today OnePlus has released a new pair of Open Betas for the OnePlus 5 and 5T, and the changes are quite substantial, including "Supported [sic] for Project Treble."

In the last few years, OnePlus has gotten serious about keeping its devices updated. While it can feel like stable OxygenOS releases take a while sometimes, the Open Beta program represents what OEMs should do: give those who are willing early access to new features, Android versions, and so on. Further attempting to bolster its positive reputation in this area, OnePlus released the Software Maintenance Schedule, which promises two years of software and three years of security releases for each device and it's already in effect.

OxygenOS 5.1.2 is out (well, it's been out for a couple of days) for the OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T. It doesn't bring with it many new features, but the May 2018 security patch and quite a few fixes are in tow. The download, weighing in at a hefty 1.61GB, is out now.

Yesterday, OnePlus pushed out new Open Betas for its 2016 and 2017 flagships. While mostly similar, the 3/3T version differs slightly from the 5/5T one. Both, however, improve the OnePlus Switch app and add the ability to manage Parallel Apps files in the File Manager.

OnePlus is good enough to provide a beta channel for its phones, so you can stay on the bleeding edge. You'll also probably encounter more bugs, but such is life. There are new Oreo-based Open Betas live today for OnePlus' recent phones. They include some functional updates as well as security patches.